The Night of the Slow Poison
by CobraShipper
Summary: After two senators die from a mysterious visit to a health resort, Jim and Artie discover that the senators' illness may have been caused by a slow-acting poison.
1. Chapter 1

Washington, D.C. 1875

* * *

><p>A hard-heeled boot landed on the platform outside the door. Artemus Gordon dropped his fountain pen and reached instinctively for the button under his desk that would release sleeping gas into the car. The footsteps sounded like Jim, but one could never be too careful.<p>

The knob turned and Artemus with it, twisting in his chair to see the familiar dimpled face of James West appear in the doorway.

"Relax, Artie," said Jim, tossing his hat on Artemus's desk and scattering scraps of paper over the floor of the car. "Mel Thompson is behind bars for a long time, and I've got a couple dates tonight to celebrate. Give me a minute to freshen up, and - "

"Jim," Artemus sighed. "Celebrating will have to wait. Remember the two senators who died last week? Within two days of each other?"

"Dover and Kinneson? Yeah." Jim was unfastening the buttons on his jacket sleeves as if refusing to make eye contact with Artemus would make the mission go away. "Since when does the Secret Service get involved in coincidences… but you're about to tell me it wasn't coincidence, aren't you, Artie?"

"Oh, I wish it were," Artemus said, hanging Jim's hat on a hook by the door and opening the brown folder on his desk. "Senators Harold Dover of Tennessee and Elijah Kinneson of Ohio. Dover dies last Monday after complaining of nausea at a horse race on Saturday. Kinneson dies Wednesday after he leaves the Capitol Monday with the same problem. Same symptoms. Same timeframe between falling ill and death."

"They got the same disease," Jim said. "C'mon, Artie. They have doctors to deal with diseases. The girls'll be waiting for us, and you can't go out looking like that."

Artemus glanced at his reflection in one of the train's windows - collar unbuttoned, sleeves rolled to his elbows, dark hair ruffled on the left side where he had run his hand through it so many times. He turned back to Jim so fast the curtains fluttered.

"That would be the end of it," Artemus said as if Jim had never interrupted, "if an intrepid secretary hadn't done a bit of snooping and found these."

Artemus tossed a pair of thick pamphlets into Jim's lap.

"'Mancini Springs Health Resort'?" Jim read. "'Denver, Colorado Territory'? That's four days by train to Washington. They both fell ill _here_."

"Sure, it doesn't look like murder," Artemus said, taking a seat beside Jim on the sofa, "but after Miss Williams went to President Grant with these pamphlets - "

"Excuse me, Artie. Did you say, 'Miss Williams', as in Merriweather Williams who caught Senetor Parry in that bribe scandal last year?"

"Miss Merriweather Williams as in hair like thousands of shining new pennies and a face like it was carved of Roman marble," Artemus said with a smile. "One and the same."

"You say it like you don't like her."

"Oh, of course I do, but we both know she'd sooner toss a man in the Potomac than kiss him."

"Get dressed, Artie, and make it something you don't mind getting wet. We're going to see Miss Williams."

* * *

><p>"I am quite pleased that President Grant took my suspicions seriously," Merriweather Williams said in a tone that sounded anything but pleased.<p>

"Well - well, it was all quite clear," Artemus stammered.

Merriweather raised an eyebrow. "Was it?"

"Ah…"

"Let me try, Artie," Jim said under his breath.

Standing, Jim was still an inch shorter than Merriweather. He looked up at her with a genial smile.

"What my partner means to say is that we're going to be investigating this further. Might you have any more information than we have in this file?"

"Let me see it." She snatched the folder from Jim's hand and thumbed through it, frowning.

"Dover got back into town Friday night, not Saturday morning," she muttered. "Kinneson's wife had just sent the doctor away when he died. Thought he might be recovering because his fever had gone down. Of course, he was paralyzed by that time…"

"How do you know so much about them?" Jim asked.

"It's a secretary's business to know."

"Funny, you know," said Artemus, "a woman works for four senators. One's in jail, and two are dead. I'm worried for Senator Hutchins."

Merriweather raised both eyebrows this time. "I see nothing funny about it! Indeed, it's rather tragic. That's why I told President Grant that I believed Harry and Eli had been assassinated. Now I have told you everything I know. Leave my house."

She watched sternly as they took their hats and left, her mouth a thin line that did not even open to bid them farewell.

* * *

><p>"Whatever you say, Jim," Artemus said three days later as the Wanderer pulled off on a siding near Denver, "I think Merriweather was part of this somehow."<p>

"Not that again. Haven't you talked about her enough?" Jim said, strapping a spring-loaded derringer to his forearm and pulling his sleeve over it. "I'm beginning to think you like her."

"She was the the one who planned _both _their trips to Denver," Artemus said. "And if you think about it, she planned ours too."

"If she killed them, why didn't she just let it look like a coincidence? Why did she tell President Grant?"

"I… it's… that's the part I haven't figured out yet."

Jim patted the revolver at his side. "Well, figure it out before I get back, not that it'll matter once I've talked to the people there. I'll probably find out they had some flu going around two weeks ago that Dover and Kinneson caught."

"Ah, Jim," Artemus said. "You're really going to take _that _into a health resort?"

"What?"

"The gun, Jim. Maybe we should get a little information before we look like lawmen."

"That's what you do, Artie."

"And I'm beginning to think I'm the only one who keeps the 'secret' in 'Secret Service'. You've got a cover story. Use it."

"Right. What's that again, Artie?"

"James West, president of the Western Railway Company. Rich playboy on his uncle's inheritance."

"Ah,_ that _story."

"No revolver," said Artemus. "But you'll probably want a couple of these."

Artemus held two red spheres in his palm.

"Grenades?" Jim asked.

"Smoke grenades."

"Thanks, Artie," Jim said, stuffing the grenades into a pocket. "I expect I'll see you soon."


	2. Chapter 2

Denver, Colorado Territory 1875

* * *

><p>Jim had passed the wooden sign for "Mancini Springs - 2 Miles" so long ago that he began to suspect the place was a hoax. His horse slowed on a steep rise, and a glimmer of white appeared through the trees at the top. The path continued through a high marble arch, onto which was carved the name "Mancini", and into a courtyard paved with chipped stones. The horse's hooves clanked across the empty courtyard, each thud echoing from the marble walls, sounding like some terrible, crushing machine. An open door led into a dark entryway from which a woman's voice cried a few indistinct words that carried into the courtyard like the howl of wind in a chimney. Jim's hand reached for the gun he wasn't carrying.<p>

The cry came again, louder and sharper, the words may have been English with a thick Italian accent. Jim slipped sideways from his horse and dropped the reins on the flagstones. He approached the doorway, ready to launch the derringer into his hand. The click of his boots was amplified into a stomp. Something white swept across the doorway, and Jim pressed his body against the wall.

"Hello," said a female voice.

Jim's horse sniffed and pawed at the stones. A woman stepped hesitantly into the courtyard without a sound, her white dress trailing through the doorway behind her. She turned to Jim as if she had been expecting to find him hiding beside the door. Her swarthy, angular face wore a cordial smile framed by loose curls of hair.

"As I was saying a moment ago," she said, her voice rising and falling in heavily accented English, "you are welcome to enter. I am sorry I was not up here sooner, but - "

"But you weren't expecting anyone," Jim said. "Seems your business is a little slow."

"Yes. It would seem you did not speak to anyone in town before coming here," the woman said, fixing Jim with her shrewd black eyes. "But you are here now, and anything you would have heard is a lie anyway. Come. I am Petra Mancini. You are Mister…?"

"James West, Uni-… Western Railway Company."

"I have not heard of it."

"We're - we used to work in shipping. The railroad is somewhat of a new prospect."

"Ah," she said in a disinterested voice. "If you will follow me inside, Guido will come to get your bag."

"I prefer to carry it myself."

Petra led Jim into a dark entryway with a long marble counter, polished glistening white but vacant as the courtyard. Pillars reached high into the arched ceiling, and between them, pools of water swirled and foamed.

"The baths," Petra said. "Guest rooms are upstairs."

She waved a hand at the broad staircase and took a key from under the counter.

"Just up those stairs, room 205."

"You won't accompany me?" Jim said, leaning over the banister on his way to his room.

Petra looked at him coldly and picked up a stack of paperwork.

"I guess I'll find it myself," Jim said. "Will I see you later?"

Petra shuffled her papers in silence.

* * *

><p>Room 205 was modest, almost rustic compared to the elegant marble baths downstairs. It was a narrow room with a single canopied bed, an ivory-painted side chair, and no windows. The wardrobe was thin as a grandfather clock. Jim grasped the knob and flung open the wardrobe door. Musty cedar but nothing out-of-the-ordinary. He pressed his hands across the seat and back of the chair then ran them over the bed. No hidden knives, no spikes descending from the ceiling.<p>

Someone knocked at the door. Jim palmed a grenade and opened the door a crack. The man in the hallway was shorter than Jim and shaped rather like a large egg balanced on two umbrella stands. He rocked from one foot do the other.

"Heard we had a guest and wanted to greet him myself," said the man with a broad grin. "My name's Mancini. Claudio Mancini, proprietor."

He held out a paunchy hand, and Jim flung open the door.

"Of course," Jim said. "Mister Mancini, I've heard so much about this place, all good, of course."

"You seem to be the only one these days." Claudio laughed nervously.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, surely you've heard the rumors. People getting sick here. People dying." He hissed the last word.

"I only heard about two. Are there more?"

"Oh, Mister West. You should really stop worrying and relax in our baths. I will see to it personally that nothing happens to you while you're here."

Claudio gave him an uneasy smile and toddled toward the stairs.

* * *

><p>It was Artemus Gordon in a cutaway coat of hunter green velvet and a silk top hat who announced himself as Arté DuMonde, world famous wine critic and merchant, at the entrance to Mezoletti's Ristorante. With polished mahogany booths and a cut-glass shade like a glittering umbrella over the piano, the place was altogether too posh for the edge of Denver. Surprisingly, most of the seats were filled, even on a Wednesday night. A lady in a striped dress played the piano and sang a bawdy song in Italian. Her audience of dark-haired men laughed while the other diners, who apparently did not understand the words, glared sharply at each peal of laughter. When she was finished, one of the men put a cigarette between her lips, and Artemus lit it.<p>

Taking her arm, he said, "A good wine is best shared with a beautiful woman. Would you lend the flavor of your company to this fine bottle of red?"

She had a wide face that was mostly cheek and, though no great beauty, gained a licentious desirability when she grinned. Artemus found her repugnant but easy to ply with alcohol. Mancini Springs, it seemed, drew the wealthy of Colorado Territory with its reputation for being built upon a strange natural feature - water that shed years from your body.

"The Fountain of Youth?" Artemus laughed.

"Of course, you are too intelligent for these fairytales," said the woman, whose name was Vetta. "Many will say the years are shed from your life."

"Oh, come now! Why would anyone go to a place like that?"

Vetta's face darkened. "No one is... well, they aren't now. At first, people were coming away from Mancini Springs looking brighter, younger, healthier than they ever had. Then they started dying. Rumors spread. Business vanished. The poor Mancinis are struggling to keep the place open." Vetta sobbed into her napkin.

Artemus took her face in both hands and smiled sympathetically. "Ah, mon chere, do not cry. What do you think is the cause of all this?"

She lowered her head and glanced around the room conspiratorially. "Remember what I said about fairytales? I have one for you. The Indians. They put a curse on the land."

"Surely - "

"When the Mancinis built their hotel, the Indians claimed it was on a sacred spring."

"What tribe?" Artemus asked more sharply than he had intended.

"I - I don't know," Vetta said quickly. Then she continued, "Something kept wrecking the vineyards 'til they had to put guards there at night."

"'Vineyards', you say? It seems they will be getting at least one visitor tonight."

* * *

><p>Jim padded down the marble stairs in the dressing gown Mancini Springs had provided. The lobby was empty. Good. He felt a little self-conscious in something so loose and garish. It was the sort of robe Artie would wear - blue and black jacquard with thick pleats at the waist and an enormous gold "M" embroidered across the back. It offered no pockets for the tiny grenades, and its bell sleeves would have left his derringer, had he been wearing it, entirely exposed.<p>

A black-haired woman in gossamer pink looked up as Jim reached the bottom of the stairs. She was lounging at the side of one of the pools, hand trailing through the frothy water. Every fold of her dress seemed to have been arranged to evoke the opulence of a Roman sculpture. She smiled, and Jim realized it was Petra.

"I see you decided to join me," he said.

Petra lifted her eyebrows in gentle confusion.

"You know," said Jim, "earlier? When I asked you to join me?"

This time Petra laughed, low but light as a shop bell. "Oh, you must think I am my sister Petra! My name is Gloria. People mix us up all the - "

She ended in a horrified gasp, her eyes looking past Jim. He did not have to turn to see what had followed him. The reflection on the glass door into the garden showed Jim in his dressing gown and another figure behind him with his hair full of red feathers.


End file.
